Collecting Shakespeare

One of the things that didn’t make the cut when I moved to Florida last year was my complete set of Shakespeare’s plays (plus the sonnets).  I bought this set some time in the mid-1960’s and, over the years; I just took it for granted that I would always have these little volumes as a reference whenever anything Shakespearean came up.  My rationalization for not packing them is that they were old, faded and dog eared and I knew this here InterWeb thing has everything I would ever need, and then some, regarding any friggin’ thing, Shakespearean or not.

Recently I had cause to look up some niggling little reference to Twelfth Night and I, as is now everybody’s wont, checked out the FAQ on-line.  Although the information was readily available it didn’t satisfy the desire I somehow have to make the knowledge mean something more than just knowing those facts.  I suddenly had the need to read Twelfth Night and maybe, even, vocalize some of the familiar lines and maybe, even, multiple times, the words rolling trippingly off my tongue, enunciating every nuance and rhythm of the text and crossing every “t” which, I learned long ago, made it all sound oh, so British.  Sitting in front of the computer didn’t cut it.

Since I was in front of said computer anyway I slid sideways onto Amazon and confronted the hundreds of choices available, both new and used.  I finally settled on the old reliable Oxford edition of Shakespeare’s complete works, totally annotated of course (I’m good at understanding the text by not that good), and the volume is on its way to my darkling door.

I hope the neighbors will think it’s my television turned up too loud.  Does anybody pontificate whilst standing in one’s residential rotunda anymore?  Et tu?